Guan
and Jun-Han immediately told Omi and Jack to stay behind; to stay
hidden in the nearby crop field and then ran towards the village that
was apparently in a great deal of distress.

Omi and Jack looked
at each other for a moment. Then, Omi pulled the Monkey Staff out of
its hiding place and handed it to Jack, who accepted it with a confused
look.

“Where do you hide these things?” he demanded to know as he watched Omi pull out the Orb of Tornami.

“They are Shen-Gong-Wu, and that is all you need to know,” Omi said, before he went racing in the direction of the village.

Jack sighed and shook his head. “Shen-Gong-Wu Space: When pockets just aren’t enough.”

Then, he activated the Monkey Staff and, screeching and hollering, booked it after the other three men.

He
quickly caught up with Omi, who admonished him to be quiet, and they
paused at the edge of town behind a hay cart that was safely away from
the flames spreading through the village.

“I will put out the
fires,” said Omi. “You sneak about and try to upset the attackers
whenever possible; put them off their balance so they will be easier to
defeat.”

“Who died and made you a general?” Jack groused, but
nevertheless, he gripped the Monkey Staff tighter with his tail and
flexed his muscles, preparing to join the fight.

“Let’s go!” Omi
shouted, and he ran under the hay cart to get clear of it, then leaped
hard and high into the air to begin dousing the flames with the Orb of
Tornami.

Jack sighed as he watched the smaller youth go. I can’t believe I’m about to do this,
he grumbled to himself. He ducked when two of the attackers looked
towards the hay cart; when it became clear they thought no one was
there and turned their backs on him, Jack grinned wickedly and went
leaping over to the two bad guys. He landed hard on them, shrieked
loudly in their ears, and went leaping away towards a mud puddle.
Seeing the villains already getting up and heading his way, he scooped
up two handfuls of mud and flung them with surprising accuracy; the mud
splattered into the men’s faces, getting into their eyes and clogging
their noses and mouths.

A moment later, another one of the
attackers was hurtled into the two mud-covered men with enough force to
send them all flying and knocking them unconscious.

Jack looked
over to see Jun-Han standing nearby, staring at him in surprise.
Monkey-Jack let out a laughing screech, gave the other man a thumbs-up,
and then loped further into the village to see what else he could
accomplish.

Jack worked swiftly and sneakily – two things he was
very good at. He would hide in whatever shadows were available and then
ambush the Bad Guys with whatever was available. By the time he was
done with them, they’d be so confused and off-balance that they were
easy pickings for either Jun-Han or Guan or Omi, who’d finished his
task of dousing the fires and had then turned his attention to the
villains.

Loping towards the center of the village, Jack was
intent on getting to Jun-Han when he felt something grab his tail and
pull; hard enough to cause him a lot of pain, and he screamed loudly.
The scream went from a monkey’s howl to a normal human’s when, whatever
had grabbed him, managed to get the Monkey Staff away from him.

Falling
to the ground, Jack rolled over and found a soaking wet, soot-smudged,
incredibly cranky villain standing over him, holding the Monkey Staff
and giving it an incredulous look. Then the man glanced down, saw him,
and smiled cruelly.

Tossing aside the Monkey Staff, the villain
reached down for him swiftly. Jack yelped and tried to scramble away,
but the man caught him by the waist, his fingers pinching hard. Jack
groaned and then began scrabbling at the man’s hands, scratching the
skin as he tried to make the man let go, but the man only laughed at
his struggles.

Irritated, Jack drew back his right arm, tensed,
and then swung – cracking his fist across the man’s jaw as hard as he
could, instantly bruising his knuckles a dusky purple color.

The
man stopped laughing and looked down at Jack furiously. Then he drew
back his own right hand and slapped Jack viciously hard, then again,
and a third time.

Jack became dizzy with the pain of the
hard-handed strikes to his face, but when he felt himself lifted up and
slung over a shoulder, he decided he’d better do something and started
kicking and struggling as he hollered at the top of his lungs. He
started hammering with his fists, looking for vulnerable spots; he was
just about to start biting as hard as he could, but then he and his
attacker were sent flying as something slammed into the man holding him
with brutal force.

The two of them landed with a squelchy plop
in the muck of a nearby pig-pen after crashing through the wooden fence
that normally kept the pigs inside. Jack skidded through the churned up
muck to crash into the trough, which rocked on its base and then tipped
over and splattered him with the slop that’d been fed to the pigs only
a little while ago and not finished.

Jack gagged and shook
himself as he tried to struggle upright. Then, he heard the yells and
thuds and looked over, wide-eyed, to see a very angry Jun-Han mixing it
up with the man who’d grabbed him. Deciding that he didn’t need to be
up quite that badly, Jack hunkered down into the muck and pulled the
up-ended trough over him for shelter; knowing he’d never be able to
pull himself free of the muck and run fast enough to get out of the way.

He
watched as Jun-Han systematically beat the other man senseless with
vicious strikes. Soon enough, the villain was lying face-up in the muck
and not moving, and Jun-Han was standing over him, looking down at the
man with a brutal expression on his face.

Jack, deciding that
he was as safe as could be, pushed the trough off of himself and began
attempting to wriggle free of the muck.

Jun-Han looked over at
the struggling youth and the nastiness faded from his expression. He
walked over to Jack, moving easily, and extended his hand.

Jack
glanced up at the hand offered to him, then down at his own, and lifted
his palm to show that it was encased in icky stuff while he looked up
at the other man.

Jun-Han smirked and grabbed Jack’s hand anyway, hauling the youth up out of the mud and slime.

Gasping,
Jack tensed and it made him slip, but an arm was swiftly wrapped around
his waist and he found himself steadied against Jun-Han’s body.
Wide-eyed, he looked into amused gold eyes and felt himself blushing.

“Ahem.”

Jun-Han
turned, still holding onto Jack, so the younger man was pulled around
with him. They saw Guan and Omi standing on the other side of the
demolished fence, looking at them. Omi held the Monkey Staff and the
Orb of Tornami.

Jun-Han grinned easily. “The battle is finished?”

Guan smiled back. “The battle is finished. All that remains is repairing the damage.”

“Which
isn’t as bad as it could have been, thanks to this young man’s
efforts,” said a new voice, and everyone turned to see an elderly man
on a cane approaching slowly, pointing to Omi.

“Liu Chang,” Guan said with a smile and a bow. “It is good to see you, my friend.”

Liu smiled back and bowed his head. “As it is to see you, Guan. And you, Jun-Han.”

Jun-Han nodded with a grin, but didn’t release Jack.

“Who are your new friends?” Liu asked, curious.

Omi bowed to the elderly man. “I am Omi, a monk from the Xiaolin Temple.”

Liu nodded and then looked to Jack.

“Jack Spicer. I’m… not from around here,” Jack said, and began pushing against Jun-Han to make the older man let go of him.

Liu blinked. “That is obvious with a name like that.”

Jack scowled. “It’s what my mother named me.”

“I’m
sure she knew what she was doing,” Liu replied, watching as Jun-Han
finally let go of Jack, though his hand hovered nearby to provide
assistance should Jack need it.

“I’ll be sure to tell her,” Jack grumbled.

“In
the meantime, there is a village to set to rights. I will see about
preparing supper,” Liu said. “Mine was one of the few homes not
excessively damaged.”

Guan, Jun-Han, and Omi bowed their thanks
while Jack inspected his soggy, nasty clothes and grimaced. Liu,
deciding not to call the strange foreigner on his manners, turned and
slowly walked away.

Jack flapped his arms and whined a bit as he said, “Man… this is beyond gross!”

The three warriors ignored him as Guan said, “Well, let us get busy.”

That caught Jack’s attention. “Doing what?”

“We are here and we were involved in the battle,” explained Omi. “It is only right that we help repair the damages.”

Jack sneered. “Do I look like a menial laborer?”

Jun-Han
frowned. “You look and sound like a spoiled child. You cannot seriously
mean to sit back and let others do the work, and then partake of their
hospitality?”

Jack was surprised to feel a skirl of shame sweep through him and he shifted restlessly.

“Jack Spicer may not have martial arts skills but he is
one of the most skilled craftsmen of our time!” Omi said with a grin,
knowing precisely what he was doing. “He can create devices that anyone
would believe impossible to make; he is very skilled with his hands.”

Wanting
to preen because of the praise and smack the smaller youth at the same
time, Jack sighed and said, “That’s because I’m a Master of Robotics, cueball! Not carpentry! If it has an engine and an interface, I can fly it, drive it, or program it. Wood-working is out of my league.”

“But—“ Omi sputtered.

“Besides,”
Jack continued, crossing his arms over his chest, “I have a malformed
public duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber and am
therefore excused from aiding a community.”

“If that is so, then why did you participate in the battle?” Guan asked.

Jack blinked, thought for a moment, and then said, “I have no idea.”

“Perhaps your ‘public duty gland’ is not as malformed as you thought,” Jun-Han suggested with a smirk.

Jack
gave the older man an irritated glower. Then he sighed and shook his
head. “All right, all right! I can’t promise that whatever I work on
will look decent, but if it gets the three of you off my back, then it’s worth it.”

All
three warriors grinned smugly and Jack longed for one of his Jack-bots,
just so he could order the robot to blast those smiles off the
warriors’ faces. Grumbling under his breath, he slogged out of the pig
pen and began stomping off towards one of the damaged homes.

Then
his eyes widened and he brought his hands up in an ineffectual attempt
to block the incoming stream of water from the Orb of Tornami. He was
knocked off his feet and fetched up against the side of a nearby home,
coughing and sputtering as Omi turned off the Orb.

“There – now you are not covered in muck!” Omi burbled, his smile huge while Guan and Jun-Han looked on.

Jack slicked back his sopping wet hair and aimed a vicious glare at Omi. “I hate you,” he spat as he got back up on his feet.